You’ve found those old vhs or Digital 8 tapes you made years ago and wouldn’t it be fun to upload to YouTube to share with relatives and friends? But first you’ve got to get that video into your computer somehow. And how do they get those YouTube videos looking so good, anyway? Here’s a process I use on a weekly basis using free software tools.

I work with my church’s audio/visual committee and every week we record video of our church service and make the sermon available online. We record from an old Digital 8 camcorder to a digital video recorder and then make a DVD of the service which I take home with me to edit and upload. You may already have a DVR you can use to record your videotapes to DVD+/-Rs or use DVD+RWs that you can erase and reuse.

Please click “Read More” to continue reading the step-by-step instructions of how to do this.  Also, please click on any of the images in this article for a larger view of them.

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Don’t you love when you find something online you want to show someone something you found on the Web, and you have an address like this to show them?

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/turmoil-hits-asia-markets-hong/story.aspx?guid={302CCE33-BF2C-4937-9BB0-4E9896E3C317}&dist=msr_16

Wouldn’t you prefer to read to someone, or email them, something like this?

http://tinyurl.com/6enjwj

If you click on both addresses, you’ll find they both take you to the same web site.  This is called a URL shortening service, and while it’s still not that pretty to look at, it’s certainly a heck of a lot shorter. (In case you are wondering, URL stands for “Uniform Resource Locator”, the true name of a Web address)

So how difficult is it to do?  Not at all! You can either go to a site like TinyURL.com and paste in your address, click a button and you have it.  The alternative is to add a bookmarklet to your browser which all that means is you visit their site and you drag the little address they tell you to up to your bookmarks.  Once you have that, you go to the page you wish to shorten, which can be any page, click the button, and it will shorten the address for you immediately.

Now, the last part of the address can be customized on most services, but remember that an address can’t be repeated, so it is highly unlikely you could have something like “/john”, but you can make it something that is easier for you to remember when you want to tell it to someone.

Typically I only discuss TinyURL as it is the one I always use, but there are over 90 URL shortening services out there, so you certainly can find one that works the best for you.

Yesterday we brought you a rundown of all the new iPods for 2008, but we also realize that some people still won’t know how to choose the right iPod for themselves or a loved one.

It can be confusing looking at all the various iPods and deciding which one will best suit your needs.  So we’re going to give you a short checklist to hopefully help you ease that decision somewhat.

Age

If you are buying for someone other than yourself, how old is the person? If they are a child, you are probably going to see a mixture of a fair amount of use and not being quite as careful. Under the age of 10 would probably be best suited to an iPod Shuffle due to ease of use, low cost and sturdy construction. Ages 11 – 16 I would say an iPod Nano due to cool colors, decent storage size and the ability to do more. After the age of 16 you’ll probably need to look at other factors.

Number of Songs

How many songs does the person currently have in their music collection? And a second part of that question should be how much of the collection they want to take with them.  If they only have a small collection, but fit the age criteria from above, I would say a Nano.  A moderate collection would fall under the iPod Touch, and huge collections would have to go with the iPod Classic.

Video

Do they want to watch videos? If so, all but the Shuffle will play video, but you need to factor in amount of videos and how good their eye sight is. While the Nano and Classic will play videos, this is one area where the Touch really shines.

Internet

The only iPod to have Internet connectivity is the iPod Touch. If they are a heavy Internet user, this is the perfect choice for them, and with the ability to watch YouTube, and use streaming music apps like Pandora or Last.fm, it really extends this one beyond it’s maximum size of 32GB.

Summary

While it may seem daunting to pick out an expensive gadget for someone, it really is no more complicated than buying any other gift. It all centers on how well you know the person, what their needs are and what your budget is.  Don’t let all the shiny colors scare you, the iPods won’t bite you, we promise.

We’ve talked about Firefox before, and how much we love it, but now comes the question of how you backup this wonderful tool.

You can backup Firefox anytime you want, but it takes several steps and can be a bit confusing.  There is a tool that has been built specifically for this task, and it only takes a few easy steps that you can easily follow by using the wizard.

MozBackup is a stand alone desktop application that you open up, follow the onscreen prompts, choose if the file should be password protected or not, and you are off to a complete backup of your favorite browser.

As you can see from this screenshot of the program, you can choose just about every aspect of the program to be backed up.  When ou need to restore the program due to a crash, or setting up an identical copy of Firefox on another computer, all you need to do is open the program again, choose the file and click “Restore” instead of “Backup” and it will take care of the rest.

The program works with the current version of Firefox and is essential for all heavy users of the program.

We discussed in How To Organize Your Windows XP Start Menu – Part 1 what you do to move folders around in your Start Menu, but now comes the question of how you move things around in and out of folders.

The first thing you need to do is to go to “Start” and then “My Computer”.

You will then click on your “Local Disk”, usually named “C” and locate the folder named “Documents and Settings”.  You will need to double click that folder to open it up.

Once inside in “Documents and Settings”, you will need to locate the folder named “All Users” and double click on that to open it up.

The next to last folder you need to go to is “Start Menu” inside of “All Users”.

Finally, the last folder is “Programs” inside of “Start Menu”.  Is it any wonder that people don’t know where this is hiding?  Once you have Programs open, you move folders around just like you would for a normal file move, create new folders, delete others ad so on.

A typical example of folders I like to condense is all the various Google products.  Every time you install one of their programs, they seem to feel that means you need another folder in your start menu.  So I like to create a folder names “Google”, and then move things like Google Desktop, Google Earth, Google Talk and so on inside of that folder, causing them to take up much less room in your Start menu.

While this may sound like general house keeping, it is, but it is well worth taking an hour of your time every so often just to organize your folders for your own sanity.

Even though Windows Vista is out, there are still plenty of people using Windows XP.  One thing I notice when I sit down at other people’s computers is how disorganized their Start menu is.

As you install new programs, new folders get added to the Start menu, and they got placed all over the board, with no real order to them.  In this first part we’re just going to show you the simpliest thing you can do which is just dragging the folders to some place else, hopefully addind some order to your programs.

The first thing you want to do is just click once on the folder you wish to move with your left mouse button.  This will turn the selected item blue.

You will then click on it once more, and while holding down the left mouse button, you want to drag it to the area you want to drop it.  If you are doing this properly you will see a shadow of the folder with it’s name, and a black bar will show up between folders to show you where it would end up when you release the button.

Once you’ve got the black bar where you want it, release the left mouse button and the folder will drop into that spot.  All done!

In part 2 I will be covering how to condense folders.

You’ve set up your blog somewhere that allows advertising, so now what do you do to make money?

The first thing you do is realize that you probably won’t be making a whole lot, if any.  It seems like such an easy concept to just start your blog and start having the money roll in, but it sadly isn’t that easy.  You will need traffic, good content and need to make sure you don’t pick the wrong types of ads.

Affiliate Programs

Amazon.com probably runs the most well known of the affiliate programs, but there are literally thousands of them out there for just about every niche you can think of. You place an ad on your blog, and a reader clicks on it to go to the companies website, they are marked as having come from your page. If they purchase anything, you receive a varying percentage of that transaction. Some programs will even allow the customer time to think, and if they return to the site within a specified amount of time, you still earn credit for the sale.

Display Ads

These are any graphical ads on a blog. You usually will want to contact companies directly about them purchasing advertising space. This has become more popular as of late due to being steady income where as the others all rely on user interaction to generate revenue.

Inline Ads

These are those words you see in some blogs that have two lines under them, and when you have your mouse over it, an ad pops up. This is another one to stay away from as it usually turns readers off because they have to be careful where they hover their mouse on your page.

Pop-ups/Pop-unders

These are uckily dying off, but pop-ups show up right in front of you without you doing anything, and pop-unders hide behind your web browser until you close it. Both are not a good way of winning over your users, and should should be avoided.

Sponsored Reviews

This is one of those ads you want to avoid. A company will pay you write about them, and in the process, this can damage your standings with some search engines as they frown upon such intrusive advertising.

Text Ads

This is usually accomplished through Google AdSense, but there are other systems out there.  These allow you to put little blocks of what look to be classified ads on your site, and you hope people click on them.  When they do, you get paid varying amounts of money based on how much the advertiser has bid.

In the end, you should use whatever form of advertising makes you the happiest, but do definitely heed our warnings on the bad ones.

This is more of a very short “how to” as it was one of those pesky things we ran into at work today.

Sometimes you need to copy and paste a hyperlink to a website to someone else, whether it be in an IM or an email, and when you go to copy it, you end up going to the linked site instead of actually getting copied.  So, how do you safely copy it?  Well, an odd trick I have found is to start your copy highlighting to the right as opposed to the left.  The reason for this is that usually on the left it is butted up against the margins, so you can’t tell if you are clicking outside of it.  By staring to the right, you know you have some clearance and this allows you a bit more breathing room.

I know, not very long, but it is just one of those little tips that makes your life a little bit less frustrating.

I don’t have a lot of extra time—I am gone on the road at least half of the month. When I am home I need to make the most of my time. This fact does not leave me time to research new or replacement purchases. Added to this is the fact that I live in a very small town and we don’t even have a Staples or Office Depot where I could do business research.

This is why I love the WEB!! I can spend as little or as much time as I want to to find information on something I need. There is no salesman dogging me and I have no stupid questions because all the specs I need are usually in the product description. Also, there are reviews—yes, reviews from people just like you and me. They have already tried it and either loved it or hated it! What is it? Anything you can think of—tomato paste in a tube, toothpaste, fax machines and so on and so on. If my head starts to hurt from too much input I just bookmark and stop until I want to look again. It is perfect. The web gives me a luxury of time that I wouldn’t have otherwise and all I need to know is accessible anywhere in the world on the world wide web.

Right now I need new office equipment. I need to replace a fax machine, copier and I need a new printer. I am going to replace all of them using the web and I am going to take all of you with me so you too can see the value of this amazing tool. It will be a fun ride.

While there is more than one way to connect a computer to a TV, we’re going to cover one of the easiest ways to do it with a laptop.

The first question most people would ask why you want to display your screen on a TV, and there are numerous reasons for this. Quite often I do this to show my family a movie trailer from a web site, or a video on YouTube, or if we have a business matter to go over, it is a quick way for everyone to be able to see the same materials without crowding around a small screen.

The simplest way to accomplish this is most laptops feature a SVHS (short for Super VHS) output like the one pictured here to the left. You will just need an SVHS cable for the picture, and most TVs today have one, if not multiple of these inputs.

As each computer and television are different, you’ll need to consult your owner’s manuals on how to change the input on your television, but most laptops will have some sort of sub key on your “F” keys (the function keys across the top of the keyboard) with a symbol for a television, or something that says something to the effect of “CRT/LCD”. Once you have located this selector, it will give you the option of changing your screen to the TV only, to the TV and laptop screen or back to the laptop only.

One caveat, as you can see from the picture at the top, the display is rarely perfect when it moves to the TV. While this isn’t a problem in general use, just don’t expect it to be perfect.

There is one more thing you’re going to need if you want to play audio along with the video, and that’s some sort of audio-to-RCA cable, such as the Belkin produced cable we have pictured to the left.  While this cable is actually meant for devices like an iPod, hence it also having an output for video, it works perfectly for connecting your laptop to your TV via your headphone output.  Once you plug this into the computer, you then plug the red and white cable to the corresponding inputs nearest the SVHS input, and you will have audio as well as video playing from your computer to your TV.

As I said, every model of computer and TV varies in all the finer details, but at least you now have a basic knowledge of what to look for, and how to get from one to the other.